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A quick snowstorm dropped about an inch of snow on us last night, and I spent the evening hours rearranging our lesson plans for today to accommodate the snow. I couldn’t expect the girls to sit down calmly at their desks working on worksheets all morning with the elusive white stuff outside calling their names! After all, snow is usually a once or twice a year treat around here.

So, we spent the morning enjoying the snow. With energy levels subdued and toes frozen, we came back inside to warm up around the wood stove with hot chocolate. Ellie journaled the snow in her weather journal while we let our toes thaw. By that point, most of the snow was a melted slushy mess anyway, and the rest of our yard a muddy mess from the girls riding their Polaris RZR 900 around in the slush. We finished off our homeschool day with a Valentine’s Day art lesson on using not so ordinary things to create other things.

We used plastic Hawaiian leis to make a DIY Valentine’s Day Lei Wreath to decorate our school room! No matter what the occasion, we almost always have plastic leis to match our party theme. Kids absolutely love them, and I usually have a few different colors leftover in my party supplies box at any given time. This is a great way to put those leftover leis to use!

Our DIY Valentine’s Day Lei Wreath was super simple to make, so simple that Ellie did most of the work herself. We didn’t use any pins or wires, and I only helped when it was time to use the hot glue.

The steps are super easy. Lay out your foam wreath form and wrap the leis around it. We did sort of a slip knot around the wreath to hold each lei on the wreath then wrapped it around 2-3 times. To do this your place the lei under the wreath form and feed one end through the other end of the lei. Pull tight to secure the lei around the wreath form.

When we ran out of lei to wrap, we tucked the ends under the previous loops to secure them. We could have used pins or hot glue to secure the ends, but tucking them in worked well to hold them in place while being a safer option for little hands.

Repeat the process until the entire foam wreath form is covered in plastic leis and you can’t see through the leis to the form. We used 15 white leis on a 9″ form. Use more or less to achieve your desired amount of fullness, or as Ellie says, “fluffiness.”

To decorate our fully covered but plain white wreath, we used tri-tone leis in a Valentine color theme. We tucked the lei in the back of the wreath, wrapped it around the front separating the two “strands” as we loosely wrapped. When we got the look Ellie wanted, we tucked the remainder of the lei in the back again. You could also opt to use ribbon instead.

I had purchased a 6-foot long strand of Layered Felt Heart Garland I was planning to use across the breakfast bar in our kitchen. Ellie fell in love with the felt hearts and thought they would be the perfect embellishments for her wreath. So, we cut them apart and hot glued them to the wreath! You could also use pre-cut or cut out your own hearts from felt, foam, or construction paper.

The beauty of this simple DIY Valentine’s Day Lei Wreath is you can decorate it any way you like with anything you have on hand. It can easily be adapted for any season or event, and it’s a great way to use those leftover leis!

FIY, Ellie also took the photos for this post to practice her photography skills. She took it a step further and used some of the Valentine themed Hawaiian Leis as well as some black leis from the party supply box for a photography background. I would say she did a great job!

Have you used Hawaiian leis for crafting? Share your ideas in the comments!

Want to make this wreath? Don’t forget to Pin the image above to easily find this post again.

Jenn is from Upstate, SC, and loves that she gets to work from home to be with her two little girls. Jenn has been happily married to her very own Superman, Ben, for over a decade, and spends her time reading, writing short stories, doing freelance work and blogging, crafting, riding motorcycles, watching Clemson football, and enjoying life with her family.

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Jenn is from Upstate, SC, and loves that she gets to work from home to be with her two little girls. Jenn has been happily married to her very own Superman, Ben, for over a decade, and spends her time reading, writing short stories, doing freelance work and blogging, crafting, riding motorcycles, watching Clemson football, and enjoying life with her family. Read More…